• Managing Pain Through Mindfulness

    A Physician’s Experience: An Effective Approach in Assisting Your Clients / Patients with Pain

    After I took my first Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in 2001 I was eager to refer my patients who suffered chronic pain to the courses offered in Canada—but found barriers.  The eight week, three hour per week, course included yoga, a day of silence and, in the first class, a 45 minute body scan meditation. It was just too overwhelming for most of my patients.

    Nowadays, body scans are shorter, but the program we began to evolve in 2002 from MBSR and called Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management (MBCPM™) took down the barriers and amplified trauma-informed and sensitive strategies. This increased our selection of whom we could refer.  More of those living with chronic pain could manage it, and fewer were apprehensive about it—plus it increased retention throughout the program.

    When patients/clients commit to putting in the time required for these mindfulness courses—which are now also offered online into their own homes—the transformation we see in them is awe-inspiring and heartwarming—and “just what the doctor ordered—!”

    With Mindfulness practice, change becomes life-long, continually improving and sustaining. Overwhelming scientific evidence supports this work.

    Persuading our patients, and ourselves, to take the time for one of the most important interventions we can provide, can be life changing. For them, and for us.

    ~ Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix

    Professional Trainings in Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management

    NeuroNova Centre for Mindful Solutions Inc. (NNC) was established in 2010 to offer professional trainings in Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management (MBCPM™).

    This work evolved from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn to further customize it for those living with chronic pain, a process that started in 2002 at St. Michael’s Hospital’s pain clinic, Toronto, and incorporated Sunnybrook Health Science’s Centre’s pain clinic and telemedicine service from 2003.

    The trauma-sensitive, trauma-informed MBCPM™ detailed curriculum is available to professionals who train to facilitate the courses for patients.

    In Collaboration with University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (UTSCS)

    and

    Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management Benefits

    Dr. Gardner-Nix talks about Mindfulness resulting in the neuroplasticity that changes how the mind/body experiences pain, reducing suffering and improving quality of life (2:05).

    Meet Our Professional Training Instructors

    Taught through the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (UTSCS)

    Online programs available worldwide via Zoom

    Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix, MBBS, PhD, MRCP(UK)

    Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix, MBBS, PhD, MRCP(UK)

    NNC Faculty Instructor, UTSCS Dr. Gardner-Nix was a Chronic Pain Consulting Physician, Department of Anaesthesia, Pain Clinic, St Michael’s Hospital until 2018, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anaesthesia, University of Toronto. She is also on courtesy staff at Northumberland Hills Hospital, Cobourg. She trained in the renowned Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based […]
    Dr. Allen Steverman, M.D.

    Dr. Allen Steverman, M.D.

    NNC Faculty Instructor, UTSCS Allen is a physician with a focused practice in chronic pain and a particular interest in mindfulness-based approaches to chronic pain management. He is an attending physician at the Pain clinic of the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal as well as at the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital, an assistant professor in […]
    Angie Kingma, OT Reg. (Ont.), RP

    Angie Kingma, OT Reg. (Ont.), RP

    NNC Faculty Instructor, UTSCS Angie is a Registered Psychotherapist and Occupational Therapist who has two decades of experience in a variety of mental health settings. She has developed a passion and expertise in mindfulness-based interventions including MBCPM™ and her skills are well respected in the mindfulness community. Her priority is therapeutic rapport ensuring compassion, kindness […]
    Grace Bezaire, B.A.

    Grace Bezaire, B.A.

    NNC Faculty Instructor, UTSCS Grace has lived experience of chronic disease and pain (colitis, migraines) who benefited enormously from mindfulness practice after taking Dr. Lucinda Sykes training in Toronto in 2009. She has a degree in anthropology from the University of Toronto. She was one of the earliest facilitators trained in delivering the MBCPMTM programme […]

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    Land Acknowledgement

    We acknowledge the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. It is on these ancestral and treaty lands that we mindfully write, meet/gather, teach, learn, and live.